In today’s world, more people are meeting online.
New social media services facilitate this trend and offer users the chance to connect with people who live around them based on interests. Smartphone app Blendr is another in the long line of platforms that make it easier to meet people online.
Alex Cook, IT Coordinator with Continuing Education at the University, calls Blendr and similar geo-social applications “a smart progression from how Facebook and Twitter process.”
Blendr and its sister app Grindr have made an impression on social interactions, Cook said.
“It will take that network and accelerate it,” Cook said. “It’s interesting because it uses Facebook and [other social networks]. I like apps like that because they’re basically taking things that were proprietary websites and use them as conduits of that.”
Cook said even though many people use the service for meeting new people and hooking up, this may not be what the creators had in mind.
“The funny thing about social networking is that no matter what you intend people to use it for, they will use it for whatever they want,” Cook said. “I don’t think the way we use Facebook and Twitter now was not what the creators had in mind when they first made it. It’s a base you.”
Read said using apps like Blendr to find hook-up buddies is launching society into a greater age of sexual promiscuity.
Blendr and similar apps are glorified chat rooms that utilize external networks, and people should be more conscious of their privacy when using these services, according to Cook.
“In chat rooms, there was a basis of anonymity, but it’s still pulling your interests and your profiles if connecting through Facebook or other social media sites,” Cook said.
Blendr shows a recent trend in app technology that has people getting away from particular websites and using apps that pull from different sites to create a unique interface and experience for each user, Cook said.
According to Cook, the target demographic for these geo-social apps are college students in their early 20s.
“I’m out of the target demographic and I found it a little invasive,” Cook said. “I think for younger people, this is that immediate connection where they don’t have to go out and find people, they’ll let the machines do it for